Notre Dame Football Job Requirement: Fiery Spirit, if Not Beard

The most distinctive trait of the person who becomes the Notre Dame leprechaun mascot is not the ability to leap, tumble, scream, orate or mug for the camera.

The leprechaun also does not need to look like a traditional leprechaun, although the current leprechaun, the senior John Doran, is a sub-6-foot Irish-American whose fiery beard almost matches the Fighting Irish’s golden helmets. (Mike Brown, an African-American who now works for the university in development, was the leprechaun from 1999 to 2001. The cheerleading coach, Jo Minton, also said two women had auditioned in her 22 years at the university.)

Rather, what is most required of the leprechaun is unflappability. Can you stage an impromptu pep rally? Will you avoid saying the wrong thing on camera when a sideline reporter grabs you because the players are off limits? Are you O.K. with walking around, well, dressed like a leprechaun?

“They want to make sure you’re not awkward,” said Doran, who began his second season as the leprechaun Saturday night, when Notre Dame opened at home with a 38-3 rout of Texas. “Notre Dame is a school that puts so much faith in its image, and understandably so, and they trust you with that image as long as you’re wearing the green suit.”

Beyond that, the person behind the leprechaun must love Notre Dame with the kind of earnestness that Doran displayed when discussing Saturday’s season opener.

“I’ve been waiting for this game,” he said. “There’s a point in the summer — right around the All-Star break in baseball — where I just catch the fever; I’m watching highlights every single day.”

The leprechaun is considered a part of the cheerleading squad, and the tryout is designed to make even the most gregarious personality shrink like a scared cat.

Auditioning leprechauns are instructed to approach students studying in the library and strike up conversations. They are grilled by a local newscaster. They enter a bar on the pretense that they are at the women’s basketball Final Four and need to excite the crowd — which, it turns out, is full of Connecticut fans.

“They’re booing me,” Doran recalled of that trial. “One kid I knew threw a shoe.” (For the record, the leprechaun’s shoes are furnished by Under Armour, which sponsors Notre Dame’s teams. The suit, though, is custom-made.)

The leprechaun has few formal rituals. At football games he is typically in the student section, rallying the crowd. A previous leprechaun told Doran not to “try to be the leprechaun before you or be another leprechaun you saw,” and Doran has tried to uphold that with his passion for his university’s sports.

Notre Dame was once an all-male university with no cheerleaders, and the mascots were dogs — typically small Irish terriers. The leprechaun became the official mascot in 1965, but for a brief period, he overlapped with the terriers and was their handler. Beyond the leprechaun’s association with one of college football’s most iconic teams, he stands out for being one of the last mascots not to feature a mask.

Originally, most mascots were just people dressed in some kind of attire. They were viewed, pun intended, as lucky charms, according to the ESPN reporter A. J. Mass, who wrote about his experience as Mr. Met in “Yes, It’s Hot in Here.” John the Orangeman was just a man who sold fruit outside Harvard Stadium whom students came to see as a harbinger of victory.

Subsequent mascots tended to be people or animals (like Yale’s Handsome Dan), but in recent decades, costumed mascots have predominated.

Brown, the former leprechaun, said he did not mind the stares.

“You walk around anywhere in a leprechaun suit, you’re going to get looks,” Brown said.

He added: “You’ve got to have energy, passion and enthusiasm. But you’ve got to be a little crazy, too, right?”

The Day’s Best

Zach Lujan The season opener against Kansas meant almost everything to South Dakota State’s junior quarterback, who played for the first time Saturday without his grandmother watching from the stands.

Lujan threw for 293 yards and three touchdowns, and the Jackrabbits spoiled the debut of Kansas Coach David Beaty with a 41-38 road victory over the Jayhawks.

“This one’s for her,” Lujan said of his grandmother, who died a week ago.

William Likely The junior returned eight punts for 233 yards, breaking a Big Ten single-game record that had stood for 76 years, in host Maryland’s 50-21 rout of Richmond. Likely also scored a touchdown.

Mangum entered the game in the fourth quarter after Taysom Hill went out with an injury.

Keevan Lucas The junior wide receiver finished with 10 receptions for 193 yards and two touchdowns to help host Tulsa edge Florida Atlantic in overtime, 47-44.

Jared Goff The junior quarterback threw for 309 yards and three touchdowns in one half, and host California pummeled Grambling State, 73-14.

Karl Joseph The senior safety made three interceptions, the most for a West Virginia player since Vann Washington had three against Louisiana Tech in 1994, in the Mountaineers’ 44-0 rout of visiting Georgia Southern.

Nick Stevens The redshirt sophomore quarterback threw for 289 yards and five touchdowns in his first career start, and Colorado State routed visiting Savannah State, 65-13.

Ray Lawry The sophomore running back ran for 223 yards and scored four touchdowns to lead visiting Old Dominion to a 38-34 come-from-behind win over Eastern Michigan. (AP)

News and Notes

Scary Moment Clemson receiver Mike Williams was carted off the field with a neck injury after hitting a goal-post support on a 4-yard touchdown pass during a 49-10 home victory over Wofford.

The school said Williams was standing up at a hospital where he had been taken for tests.

Williams was down behind the end zone for several minutes, surrounded by trainers, medical personnel and coaches, including Coach Dabo Swinney. Williams was then strapped to a backboard and lifted onto a cart. After his teammates came to offer support, Williams lifted up his right arm in a gesture to the cheering crowd.

Swinney said at halftime he thought Williams would be all right. Swinney said Williams had wanted to walk off the field on his own, but university medical personnel thought it was safer to remove him by cart.

Williams, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound junior, was Clemson’s top receiver last season with 57 catches for 1,030 yards and six touchdowns.

New Top Dog? Georgia has a new bulldog mascot who could get the official title soon.

Que served as the mascot for the season opener against Louisiana-Monroe. Georgia announced that a new mascot, to be named Uga X, would be named this season.

Claude Felton, a spokesman, said Que was “the leading candidate” to replace the 11-year-old Russ in Georgia’s line of white English bulldog mascots.

The 1-year-old Que is the grandson of Russ. Que also sat in as the mascot during Georgia’s recent picture day for fans, and his rise to official status seems to be only a formality.

Frank Seiler’s family has bred the line of English bulldog mascots since Uga I made his debut in 1956. (AP)

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SP11 of the New York edition with the headline: Job Demands a Fiery Spirit; A Fiery Beard Is Optional. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe